Rigel_Kent

Sorry if the following suggestion has been made; I'm skipping this ridiculously long thread under the assumption that it's mostly argument over whether this is a bad idea or not.

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I suggest pricing paid respecs competitively, compared to the price of buying influence from RMT then buying a Respec Recipe through the auction system. I polled the current inf prices offered by the RMT sites; $4 to an RMT site for 20 million influence (the approximate in-game trading price of Respec Recipe) remains a cheaper alternative than $10 to NCSoft to buy the same thing. By cutting your price to the neighborhood of $5 or less, you will eliminate one of the economic incentives to cheat through an RMT site. This would achieve a policy goal at the same time as a financial goal.

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3. No posting of personal information

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This seems to focus on the posting of other people's personal information. Users should be cautioned not to post their own personal information, either.

For security rather than privacy reasons, PlayNC account and game account usernames and passwords should not be permitted.

Would anyone from NCI ever ask for personal or security information through this forum? Here, or rule 7, would be a great place to include a "we will never ask for" anti-phishing notice.

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6. Do not post about exploits.

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Forum users are divided on how to define "exploit." The difference between an exploit and a workaround, for instance, is highly subjective. We'd be even more divided on what kind of discussions about which exploits should be barred from discussion.

It might help to draw some clear lines here. Perhaps limit this rule to "how-to" posts for major, unknown, and current exploits? For instance, the following topics I've posted about, although some would call them exploits, should be allowed:
* RMT spam (very few posts on this topic are "how-to")
* backdoor slotting Screech for range (minor exploit, arguably a workaround)
* farming (everyone knows about this)
* City of Blasters/the Smoke Grenade decimal-point bug (historical exploit, no longer in game)

If it sounds like more trouble than it's worth, it probably is. Game security is NCSoft's job, and I'm not sure it should be a burden on the forum moderators to keep bugs hush-hush.

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12. No Legal Action threads.

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Could this rule be explicitly limited to threads about the starting of new legal action? It hints to that effect but could be clarified.

I was very active in the Marvel vs NCSoft discussion thread; we weren't advocating the filing of a new lawsuit by anyone against anyone, rather discussing an already existing lawsuit. Most of us "endorsed" one side or the other.

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15. Player Generated Content
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Copyrighted, proprietary images, as well as images that do not belong to you (i.e. Personal photographs or artwork without permission of the creator) are also forbidden.

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Careful. Some content providers grant a blanket license for personal Internet use, often explicitly including forum avatar use. And then there's the whole fair use quagmire. Rather than moderator level enforcement, potential copyright violations may be better dealt with on a notice-and-takedown basis through your DMCA Safe Harbor policy (linked to in rule 18).

Force Fields Balance Issues

Detention Field inflicts only affecting self status, but does not accept intangibility enhancements (which also enhance only affecting self magnitude).

Kinetics Balance Issues

Increase Density provides incomplete knockback protection similar to Acrobatics, but does not accept knockback enhancements (which also enhance knockback protection).

Sonic Resonance Balance Issues

Sonic Cage inflicts only affecting self status, but does not accept intangibility enhancements (which also enhance only affecting self magnitude).

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Except there were dozens of people who've been consistently right all along.

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Naturally. If I recall correctly, in those days I was highly skeptical that Statesman or any other dev played defenders at all. Aside from pure healers, perhaps.

It just took a global defense nerf to convince those of us who aren't so well attuned with defender zen.

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I'm so happy that sensible people run this game now.

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To be fair, hindsight is 20/20.

Sure, sets like FF might have been unwelcome on teams with an invincible no-target-capped tankers, but Statesman's trial and error has given us more confidence in saying that this was more of an FF problem than a tanker problem.

Wow. Good luck, man.

Issues Affecting Multiple Sets
* Graphics: Vigilance's icon suggests it is a compound buff affecting the team. An inherent endurance self-buff icon exists but is unused, and would be a better fit for Vigilance.

(Another way to talk about AV debuff resistance)
* Balance: Archvillains have the same debuff resistances as Giant Monsters. Archvillains are typically faced by eight or fewer heroes, while Giant Monsters are typically faced by large numbers of heroes. Consequently, debuffs are not as large a force multiplier against Archvillains as they typically are against Giant Monsters.

Storm Summoning
* Bug: Gale's double tick of knockback is incompatible with ragdoll physics. In most circumstances, the second tick will never affect targets subject to ragdoll physics.
* Graphics: Tornado will appear tilted or sideways if summoned from above, until it moves.

Dark Blast
* Balance: The endurance costs of Tenebrous Tentacles and Night Falls appear to be reversed.

Psychic Blast
* Balance: Psionic Lance, unlike most sniper blasts, has a side effect (-recharge) that is significantly weaker than other blasts in the set.

Sonic Attack
* Bug: Shockwave's double tick of knockback is incompatible with ragdoll physics. In most circumstances, the second tick will never affect targets subject to ragdoll physics.
* Bug: Screech is a ranged attack but does not accept range enhancements.

Dark Mastery
* Bug: Oppressive Gloom's self-inflicted damage increases if affected targets are lower level, decreases if affected targets are higher level.
* Bug: Dark Consumption's endurance recovery increases if affected targets are lower level, decreases if affected targets are higher level.
* Bug: Soul Drain's damage and tohit buffs increase if affected targets are lower level, decrease if affected targets are higher level.

He can't have an English degree. He has a job.

Why hire lawyers to do a security guy's work? Code monkeys are way cheaper, anyway. Hell, I get paid in Diet Dr Pepper.

Here are the next few forum questions and their answers.

[27:59]
Chooch: There were two questions that were actually related somewhat. One was from Proeliator -- I'm sure I'm going to murder some of these names -- who wrote,

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Are there more plans for the Rikti? Since the midnight squad is so anti rikti, It makes sense, but are there any new major things. Are we going to visit the surface of their home world? Are we going to finally figure out why they hate us so much? Are we going to learn more about how a human becomes a rikti and Rikti background in general? [link]

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C: And Mr_Magnanimous says,

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Story wise will you ever get a better impression of the alien race that long ago altered the people of the Rikti Home World dimension? [link]

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Joe "Hero 1" Morrissey: I think the short answer is "yes," if I had to guess, because as a fan I would totally love to say "yes" to all of those questions. I would. And so my job, as a dev, is to bring those questions to life. I know for sure we're not going to walk away from the Rikti anytime soon. They're a major threat in the game, and Issue 12 brings them back into focus through the Midnight Squad, and you see what other impact they've had, besides just through Vanguard. I think all of that lore is so rich, and that we'd be fools not to explore it. And that way you can get Hero 1 in a mission again, so I'm all for that.

_Viv_: Maybe a Task Force.

J: Yeah, he's got to figure out how to deal with being Riktified pretty soon.

C: So any chance of heading through a portal and landing on the surface of their home world?

J: Not in the near future, but it definitely is something that we talk about. It would be very nice to be able to do. It just, again, it all depends on how -- not wanting to give anything away -- but it's like how I mentioned that we understand the landscape of where we want this game to go, but that doesn't mean we understand all of the landmarks along the way. And we know, okay, at some point we want to wrap up the Rikti invasion, and what's the best way to do that? And honestly, that way might go a completely different direction than even the fans and myself can perceive of right now, but it would be so much cooler than whatever way it is.

[30:28]
C: Question from Xilibrius who says,

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Hello the biggest question on my mind is will the new zone being added with issue 12, which is level 35 to 50, follow the footsteps of the Rikti War Zone in being a co-op zone for both heroes and villains. [link]

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C: I thought that was part of the announcement.

J: Yeah, that was in the announcement. It might not have been as strong, but yeah, it is a co-op zone. I think it's going to, like I said, what we have in there now for the content, because we got Imperius's Task Force and we have some other stuff you can do in there as well, but there isn't as strong of a villain presence as I would like to see. So hopefully that's something I can dip my hands into as we move forward. At least that's definitely our goal, because -- I don't know if you guys have gotten a chance to go into the zone or check out any of the instance missions that we have in there, but they're gorgeous, they're just absolutely beautiful. So we're like, we should really just have the game hang out here for a while, this is nice. But we'll see.

C: I don't know, there's these nondisclosure things, then we don't talk about Fight Club.

J: Oh that's true, yeah that's true.

V: We cannot admit or deny that we are or are not in beta.

J: Okay. I was going to say, because by the time this goes live --

V: Tomorrow.

J: -- yeah, everything should be good. It looks really good in there.

V: Open beta.

J: And the bugs will really fly in.

V: Oh yeah. Yeah, I feel for you guys.

J: It's the fun part of it. It's maybe not the fun part, but it's the necessary part, to actually start seeing what comes back. This time, things have been fairly good, I say crossing my fingers. Off and on. We've got a couple ones, but I feel like I'm finally starting to get a handle on our systems here in the game.

V: Well, and it's better to find them now than after the game goes live on the live servers, so you may as well just get ready for it.

J: Yeah, I have enough of those already.

[32:34]
V: So we have a question from ShadowWings:

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In the upcoming issues, will the 'Storm' mentioned by Ouroboros, be further introduced, including the writer of the letters you find in certain Ouroboros missions/tfs [link]

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J: Yeah, absolutely. All will be revealed with that.

V: Nice.

J: It was an idea that sprung to mind while we were working on 11, as far as the letters. And the "coming storm" is a seed for events down the road. It's one of those mountains that when we want to take you to that mountain, it will play out, and it'll be very cool. And as far as the letters, I don't necessarily know if I want to say if they're tied together right now, with the "coming storm" and the letters. They definitely are, when you read them, but there's a lot of reveals with those that we can do before we get to the "coming storm." But before the storm has come, so to say.

V: Gotcha.

J: But we actually -- Positron and I talked for Issue 12, if we wanted to reveal who it was that writes the letters. Because we haven't even done that yet, right, we're totally teasing you guys. But at the end of it, we decided to continue to tease, basically. We got some really cool stuff for it, I'm really excited about it, and again, I'm hoping the players are going to look at stuff and go "Wow." I hope is to surprise, and to shock and awe, if possible. See what happens.

V: Well we'll be as patient as we can possibly bear to be.

J: Well, it should be hopefully good news that we had even talked about this issue, about kind of wrapping up the pause. Because I initially saw this, at least part of the letters, to be a plot line that we could wrap up fairly quickly, because like I said before, I didn't want to have a lingering plot thread out there that just never really got resolved. It just wasn't best for this issue. We didn't have enough flashback content, this issue, to really merit it, and since you only get these notes from when you do a flashback mission, and I stash them in somewhat hidden places. So it was like, well, we only have one this time, so we don't really want that to be the one, so let's see how we do next time.

V: Well it makes sense.

[35:02]
V: So we have a question from Cipher:

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Will we see more historical scenarios added to Ouroboros? I'd love to visit more bits of history: Brass Monday, the December 7, 1941 invasion, Recluse's overthrow of The Weaver. [link]

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J: Brass Monday wasn't even actually on the table at one point, when we were talking about the initial flashback stuff. Again, like to do it right, like to really make it as cool as we want it to be. We were like, eh, let's wait, let's see what's going on. That's one of the great things about flashback. From a player's standpoint, a system standpoint, the crystal is great to go back and play old content that already came out. But from a storyteller place, I have this great opportunity where basically I can tell two stories at the same time. I can tell the story of where you guys are at, why the missions you're doing now, and how they're going forward. But then I can also take you back to the beginnings of those ideas, and from that give you background and ideas about why what you're doing now is important and how long it's been around. And I think stuff like Brass Monday would be an excellent way to do that. Yeah, that would be an awesome one. I'm already thinking about it.

V: Oh, cool.

C: Nice.

[36:19]
C: And a question from Kitsune9tails says,

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Stepping into Manticore's shoes: are you consciously trying to emulate what he had going on, or heading in your own direction? [link]

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J: I always need to be faithful to the lore of the game. I'm probably the fourth or fifth guy, I think, to take on this role here. So there's a lot that's been done before I got here, and if I was to completely break out on my own, then that would probably be bad. And Manticore definitely helped establish a lot of where things are going. So my first job is really, like I said, to be faithful to what we've done, and what we want to do. So I need to figure out, because there's so much content, and so many people who have worked on other stuff, that -- I think Positron had mentioned this before -- there's a lot that we just don't remember about the game. And that's where sites like Paragonwiki come in real handy, to go through and find out all of that stuff. Go through there, my "Find in Files" works really helpfully, on my text file program. So I'll go through, and first of all, I'll find out what we've said, and then I'll look through the story bible and I'll see what we meant, because a lot of times, there's -- I think there was another question on the forums that talked about what's the difficulty between those two, and really, that's what it comes down to is that the story bible will have one way or one vision for how a certain event will play out, but then the mission designer, down the road, might have written it in a different way, or because, just the nature of game development, things just didn't turn out that way. And so trying to reconcile those two things is really where the difficulty comes from, in the two of them.

C: Yeah, I know there was one who had basically said, when it comes to novelization, gameplay, when those contradictions happen, which one's right, which one's canon? [note: Johnny_Butane asked this. [link] -ed.]

J: The first one, I'd have to say, is the game. The game trumps all. If we've said it in the game -- now that doesn't mean we won't come back and go, yeah, you know what, we were actually wrong about that, sorry. We do hold that card. We generally try and only do that only as a last resort. First it's what we've said in the game, and then, from there, we look at the story bible to see what we want. And there's a lot of stuff that's in the story bible that we haven't released to the public, and so there really isn't a big conflict in that respect. But where there is a conflict, I'd probably have to say that me personally I would go: game, then website, then comic book, then novel. The novel and comic book I could see going back and forth on, but Positron might disagree with me on that. I like the comic books much more, they're much more "now," they feel more tied to the world. So I think that that would win out over the novels.

[39:36]
C: And Memphis_Bill ties in a question similar to that:

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How much of a bribe would it take to get ahold of that story bible for a day or two? [link]

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J: My answer to that is always pretty much the same. Which is, if you guys update all the stuff on the wiki, so that it's completely up to date and accurate and everything's there, then I'll let you guys look at the story bible.

C: Nice.

V: Gotcha.

J: Because I'll go there and you guys don't have everything. There's a couple things that are missing. I'm like, hey why isn't this there? Which is also why I have an account but have yet to really post much on there.

C: Very cool.

V: Okay, Memphis_Bill, get to work.

C: Yep.

V: Now you know.

J: I'm sure the people at Paragonwiki are going to love to hear that.

C: Yeah.

[40:20]

Spoilers!

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how about a program that screens all Emails...

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This sort of server side filter is completely vulnerable to datamining. A spammer would simply set up a test dummy recipient and see which spams go through and which don't.

User-defined blocklists, on the other hand, would be invulnerable to datamining. So long as spammers receive no information as to whether their tells and emails go through or get blocked, and as long as nobody's dumb enough to give their blocklists out to other people, the spammers will never know what recipients' filters are. False positives can be dealt with in a variety of ways I won't get into here.

The next step for spammers would be random text hack1fy1ng and brute force, though, and that could overwhelm user-defined filters. So if and when user-defined blocklists get implemented, the devs should already be working on some way to throttle how many bytes of messages one sender should be allowed to send per unit of time. As I mentioned recently on another board, in computer security, you have to be two steps ahead.

Finally, the devs need to take advantage of GM omnipotence. Unlike regular e-mail on the open Internet, sender and receiver are both on the same system, and no outside systems are involved. This means that unlike regular e-mail, GMs can trace in-game spams to their true originators, and trace all the messages sent from those originators as well. If the devs give the GMs the ability to mindwipe all emails and offline gtells sent by a spammer, that will reduce the amount of spam piling up on logged-out players to nearly zero.

Edit: P.S. I hate g****a.com too. I just logged in to 35 emails on my level 50 blaster.

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Third, don’t visit their website! Even if you want to see how stupid their selling practices are or are curious, often times these sites will attempt to infect your PC with viruses or keyloggers so that they can gain access to your account.

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I hope nobody gets alarmed. I don't think there's any evidence these spammers are doing this. (Yet.)

That said, though, it's a good rule to never visit any unsolicited web link, whether you're receiving the link in a game, or in your regular e-mail, or by instant messenger, or anywhere else. Treat it the same as you would treat an unsolicited attachment, because opening it is a similar risk.

City of Heroes is noted for its highly adaptable character creation. Does the variety of player content affect how you design game content? In other words, how do you write for characters who could be zombies, mutants, aliens, or robots?

On the defender board, I brainstormed a system of pvp "repel suppression" inspired by Defiance 2.0's stacking microbuffs, and by 15 second pvp mez suppression. This could be in addition to any other repel defense changes, such as break frees.

For each repel power, when used against a pvp target, the power could grant a stacking, 15 second duration, repel protection to the target. The magnitude of the protection would equal the power's repel magnitude, divided by the number of times the power ticks in 15 seconds. The goal of this is that after a target is under 15 full seconds of repel from a power, net repel from that power drops to zero against that target.

For example, each 0.50 second tick of Telekinesis would still put 1 non-stacking repel for 0.75 seconds on any target, but it would also give a pvp target -0.033 (1/30) stacking repel for 15 seconds. After 30 ticks (15 seconds) of this, a pvp target would no longer be repelled (but still might be held). Hurricane and Force Bubble would work similarly if every tick is hitting (i.e. target trapped in corner). If only a few ticks hit in any 15 second period, as with the usual, non-corner-trap use of Hurricane or Force Bubble, repel is only diminished partially.

Even with stuff like Power Boost and Power Build Up in the mix, the numbers will work out, so long as both the positive and negative repel factors are equally enhanceable and equally resistable.

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Players, especially new players are being alerted that options are there, by being sent on these mishes.

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I'm not so sure. Remember, the tutorial contacts are strictly sequential -- one contact isn't opened until the previous contact is finished. There's very little warning between the tutorial and Wincott that this stops being the case.

This is a broader problem than the Hollows, though.

On first impressions:

97% awesome.

3% still having to drop that one "defeat all creatures in cave" Igneous mission with minions twice as hard as Vahz who give less xp and have a habit of spawning +1 like crazy even on Heroic.

Still an A+.

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You haven't mentioned any bugs.

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Perhaps no bugs, but we've mentioned some potential new exploits. Remember, this change doesn't remove softloading. It only changes the way softloading works in specific situations, with the intended goal of more forced teaming in those situations.

Also, bugs are not the only reason changes get reverted on test server. See the last Assassin Strike change.

The best we can do is compile our own experiences, and take them with a grain of salt. Some of us run more puggy TF, some of us run them less puggy. Some of us are running Katies, some of us are running Citadels, some of us are running LGTFs. So, sure, there are a lot of variables, but I think there's still some good quality data waiting to be collected.

I'm as shocked as you are that I've had to defend something so elementary as player feedback based on actual testing. This is information about casual pickup TFs among strangers -- that's something the devs cannot possibly already have data for from in-house testing. That, simply put, is why it's so valuable.

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Heh, you have access to the "cold hard data"? Wow, I didn't know the devs gave you such unfettered access to their database. Must be nice.

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Flagrant straw man. I have nothing more to say to you, since I can no longer tell whether your posts are responsive or are trolling. Nothing personal, but it's for the good of this thread.

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*** You are ignoring this user ***

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As for everyone else, please do share your experiences. The more data we have, the better our feedback to the devs will be.

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Do you really think that tit-for-tat task force succeeded/task force failed bickering will really solve anything or convince anyone one way or another?

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You say tit-for-tat, I say cold hard data. If cold hard data isn't going to change your mind, then there's nothing more that needs to be said.

Anyway, the reason I'm posting it is because the burden of proof is on me to show that some percentage of pickup task forces are failing because of this change. Adding my results to yours so far, that percentage is about 20% -- 1 out of 5 (three successes, one would have failed anyway, one would have otherwise succeeded).

There may be a correlation between failure rate and "pugginess" or number of known-to-each-other players on the team, as my pugs tend to be organized over broadcast or Virtue Badges rather than whatever channel you use, while both your results appear to have been led by the same other player with fewer unknowns.

(QR)

Just another TF experience to report. A LGTF fell apart due to a domino effect. First mission took long than expected to complete, one blaster got impatient and quit. Down to seven. Second mission took even longer to complete, another blaster started feeling sick and quit. Down to six. Then everyone got sleepy and quit after the third mission, which was successful but took for-EV-er.

So I guess, as casual pickup task forces fall lower and lower below the minimum -- even by one -- chances increase that more players will drop out. How steeply do they increase? I guess we'll need lots of data to find out. So far I'm 1 for 3 on pickup TFs falling below the minimum: one succeeded, one was hopeless even without the minimum spawn sizes, and one failed that would have still succeeded before this change.

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Again, this change boils down to one extremely simple concept: When a task force contact says that you need a team of at least x people, they really do mean that you need a team of at least x people. Not one less, not two less, not whatever is personally convenient for you less. x people.

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Simplicity is not correctness. We're not arguing whether this change happened. We're arguing whether it's right.

Positron says TFs are intended as casual content. If that's the design goal, then up to six to ten hours of forced-teamed content (as is the case with Dr. Q) is simply bad design. Casual content design must account for human factors. You might dismiss human factors as "personal convenience," but take my word for it: neglecting ergonomics and real life priorities is not a good thing.

Anyway, I'm glad if you've had only positive TF experiences since this change. But they do not negate anyone else's negative experiences. Not every casual player is feeling the chilling effect on TF attempts, but some are, and that needs to be noted.

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Hello. I am a horrible teammate to do a TF/SF with, or team with.

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Apparently so.

People like you and I are just too "casual" for task forces anymore. You, me, and anyone else who can't sit still for up to six to ten hours at a time without real life butting in.

I guess we could all follow Tony's advice and start a Task Force with more than the minimum. Never mind that, as anyone who's run a casual pick-up Positron knows, starting an 8-man Positron is a recipe for a different kind of disaster.

Unless Tony means to run Positron with 8, and softload every mish for 3. That's still very much doable, and may, in fact, become my preferred way to run Positron from now on. This change is, after all, not really about softloading, and more about forced teaming.

8-man Positron protects against people quitting below the 3-man spawn floor, and softloading keeps the difficulty from getting out of hand. Perfect! Who would've guessed this change would actually encourage more gaming of the system?

Oh yeah. Everyone did.

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Nope, posi said he wants you to complete the TF as a team, or not at all. Read his justification for this change, he's clear about that much.

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I was just about to post to disagree with you. After all, softloading and not forced teaming is the apparent target of the change.

But then I started thinking: Why only Task Force softloading? Why only a spawn size floor, and not a spawn size ceiling? Surely the developers know softloading is used abusively (i.e. exploited) primarily in non-Task Force missions, and is used to add to spawns, rather than subtracting?

Because softloading is exploited primarily in non-TF missions, and is used to pad rather than to reduce the spawn sizes, I can't say with confidence that softloading is at the heart of this change.

That, unfortunately, leaves forced teaming.

Well, at least they didn't make it so the TF fails and autokicks everyone if too many people quit. Dr. Q failing if any single player hit the Quit button would be pretty heavy.

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This game CAN tell the difference between someone thats logged off and someone thats QUIT the tf.

Therefore a better solution to softloading is to set spawn size to team size including logged off.

If someone quits the TF spawn sizes should adjust because they are not coming back.

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Possibly a good compromise. But only if the ability to kick logged out players is also added.